Promotion Management do's and dont's

Hi,

Recently we migrated our Business Object Documents from one server (BI 4.0 SP4 Patch 6) to a new server (BI 4.1 SP3 Patch 2).  I wanted to share this experience and let you know where we struggled, so you can do it better!

We promoted the documents from BI 4.0 production to BI 4.1 development. And later on from BI 4.1 development to BI 4.1 acceptance and from acceptance to production.  So we could get rid off a lot of testing documents and other stuff not used anymore. However,  for some applications we had to promote as well from BI 4.0 development to BI 4.1 development.

1. DO: while promoting log-on to the highest BI server (ie BI 4.1)

>> log on to CMC BI 4.1 >> promotion management >> Settings >> Manage Systems >> Add system (BI 4.0 prd)

>> When you want to promote your documents from one system to another, you have to deal with connection changes.  In this case we promoted our BI 4.0 production to our BI 4.1 development.  So the connections of for example BW production should be realligned with BW development.  To handle this, you have to set your override settings. (Remember 1. DO)

>> log on to CMC BI 4.1 >> promotion management >> Overide Setting >> log on to the BI 4.0 production >> Scan

>> log off >> log on to the BI 4.1 development >> start editing your connections (select only one connection and the edit feature will come available) >> set the override "active" and SAVE.

(editing will be change BW production to BW development)

1. DON'T .. if you have changed your connection in the "source" system, do not delete the connection in the "target" system and in a later stage try to rescan it and force it in the target system.  This will create an issue, because a new ID will be created.  So only rescan (deletion is forever).
2. DO ..  if you have multiple connection from other systems (BW from Production and BW from Development) rename the connections in the override, so you will recognize from which system they are.  (this is when you have to promote BI 4.0 development to BI 4.1 development)
3. If you use query browser in your dashboard designs, it can be additional required to restart the dashboard server.
4. If you promote your documents for the first time >> go to the manage dependencies window and select all.  For the following times, the document itself will be enough.
5. We did not succeeded in promoting all from BI 4.0 to BI 4.1.  the user groups hierarchy we had to remake manually and assign the roles from IDM to the usergroups.  Followed by the update of the roles, the users will be hanged correctly in the hierarchy.  Acces Levels and user securtiy assignement are promoted cleanly.  In the promotion job >> promote >> Security Settings
6. NOTE that a promotion job can not include all your documents. (you're promotion job will result in partially success).  An exact figure I cannot say, but we managed to do it application by application.
7. If you reuse a promotion job, newly added reports will not be automatticaly added to your job.

If you have as well good advise about this toppic, please, let me know and collaborate on this document.